Understanding the causes of weed problems

You can beat weeds if you understand what causes the weeds and what causes your weed problems. As a result, you can have fields that are largely free of weed problems.

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The simplest definition of a weed is a plant growing where someone doesn't want it.

Weeds do particularly well in certain environments. Often these are farming or gardening situations.

So, a weed is a plant
For many farmers, the key step in dealing with weeds is realizing what is causing the weeds.

A lot of modern farming almost appears to be based on the idea that the cause of weeds is a deficiency of weedicide.

A moment of reflection will make it clear that this is ridiculous.

But many of your neighbors may be behaving this way now. You may have done it yourself. The idea seems to be based on these responses to weeds:

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In fact,
the usual cause of weeds is not understanding what is happening, as it happens.

What is happening on your farm may be quite different from what is happening on the neighbor's.

You may even get the same weed for different reasons.

The first step in beating weeds is to understand the weed, where the weed fits into your farming and what aspects of your farming are allowing the weeds to get ahead. Once you have a good understanding, you have the potential to get back in the lead.

As well as understanding the weed itself, it helps to have an understanding of how it relates to its surroundings, including your crop plants.

Any weed has one distinct advantage over a crop or pasture plant:
A weed has only one purpose.

Through millions of years of evolution each weed species has been pared to the bone to do what it does best:
produce more weeds

But your purpose is to farm, so you are trying to achieve many things. Plus you have a life outside farming.

So you are at a disadvantage, because weeds are just part of what you have to deal with.

For a farmer who is new to a particular weed, sometimes the first step is even noticing the weed.

This may be because the weed is hidden among other plants or the weed may be not different enough for the weeds to become obvious until there are a lot of them. During this time, the weed may have built up a large weed seed bank in the soil.

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These questions will help you to get a better grip on your weed problems and get ahead of weeds:
If you can answer all those questions, generally you can get ahead of the weed.

Where you can't answer any particular question, the weed has the chance to get ahead of you.

To understand the weed you need a clear mental picture of the weed, of your crop and where it all fits together. The key thing to work out is:
Once you understand how what you provide for your crop allows the weed to get ahead, you can do something to shift the balance back.

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But you can compress all that questioning into this:

Why is there a space right here that this weed has managed to take over?

If you can answer that for every weed you have, you can prevent those weeds coming back.

In farming we often miss the fact that what matters is the relationships between things rather than the things themselves. If you work out where the relationships fall down, you will find it easier to resolve the problem than if you focus on any single thing.

Pick your worst weed and think about what has changed and allowed it to become your worst weed.

Unless it has always been that one weed and it has always been this bad, there is a fairly good chance that something has changed in your management, in your climate, in your cropping or in your surrounds.

Some of the more common causes for a significant worsening in a weed problem are:

A suitable next step might be:
Pick your worst weed and get a handle on what is causing the weed problem, as distinct from what is causing the weed itself.

If your crop is very competitive, there may be no problem with the weed, even though the weed is present. This is not a weed problem.

If your crop is struggling, the same number of weeds may overpower the crop. This is a weed problem. And the cause is not the weed. The lack of competitiveness in the crop is causing a weed problem.

A good step is Learning from pests

For more info on how allelopathy works and how you can use it, see Allelopathy

Many people have succeeded at Weed control without chemicals. You can too.


If you are looking at a printed version of this page and you would like to visit it on the internet and get a stack of other info that may assist you, the full web address is
http://www.OrganicExchange.com.au/all/fc913301.htm

Related info:

Beat pests by using advantage

Using SWOT to beat a major weed

Niche

Do weeds come to heal the soil?

Non-inversion tillage as a herbicide

Pasture legumes are special

Weed control without chemicals

SWOT analysis to boost profit

Learning from pests

Choosing a farming course and teacher

Green manures

Ground cover

Selective grazing

Allelopathy

Green manures in orchards and vineyards

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Summary
A weed is a plant growing where someone doesn't want it.

Weeds do particularly well in certain environments. Often these are farming or gardening situations.

The first step in beating weeds is to understand them, where they fit into your farming and what aspects of your farming are allowing the weeds to get ahead. Once you have a good understanding, you have the potential to get back in the lead.

As well as understanding the weed itself, it helps to have an understanding of how it relates to its surroundings, including your crop plants.

You can beat weeds if you understand what causes the weeds and what causes your weed problems.

As a result, you can have fields that are largely free of weed problems.

For many farmers, the key step is realizing what is causing the weeds.

A lot of modern farming almost appears to be based on the idea that the cause of weeds is a deficiency of weedicide.

You can compress your questioning into: Why is there a space right here that this weed has managed to take over?

If you can answer that for every weed you have, you can prevent those weeds coming back.


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This page was updated on December 27, 2007